In typical prior art designs, significant effort must be expended in designing amplifiers and mixers capable of dealing with a very wide variation in input levels (dynamic range) at the same time providing compensation for temperature variations that greatly affect the performance (particularly the gain) of individual devices within the integrated circuit. In spite of these efforts, a considerable amount of customization of designs is require to meet specific operational conditions.
In the past, the need for reducting customization of circuits had been recognized. However, none of them has been entirely successful, and some degree of customization of each design is generally required to meet customer requirements.